Jasper Schuringa, a video director and producer from Amsterdam, has been hailed as a hero by his fellow passengers. He said he heard a sound that reminded him of a firecracker and someone yelling: “Fire! Fire!”

But he was sure something was wrong only when he saw smoke coming from a blanket on Abdulmutallab’s lap. He saw that the man’s trousers were open and he was holding a burning object that resembled a small white shampoo bottle between his legs. “I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away,” Mr Schuringa said.

He said he screamed for water and pulled the man out of his seat, dragging him to the front of the plane. Mr Schuringa said Abdulmutallab seemed “out of it” and was “staring into nothing”.

To ensure that Abdulmutallab did not have other explosives on his body, Mr Schuringa stripped off the would-be bomber’s clothes. Someone – believed to have been a member of the cabin staff – produced handcuffs, which the Dutchman, with the help of a crew member, used to restrain Abdulmutallab.

Other passengers described a “terrifying four-minute panic” as five men and three women fought with a “belligerent, screaming” man.

A middle-aged male passenger said: “All we heard at the beginning was a bang. It sounded first like a balloon being popped, and then a minute later there was a lady shouting things like ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’?”

Shama Chopra, a Canadian passenger, recalled: ‘‘The man was on fire and the flames were so high they almost hit the roof of the plane. I thought we were all gone.’’

Another passenger heard Abdulmutallab say the word “Afghanistan”, perhaps suggesting that his actions were a retaliation for the West’s invasion of that country.

Another said they knew there was a terrorist threat “when we saw the fear in the flight attendants’ eyes”.

By now, the plane was well into its descent and many of the passengers feared that the plane was on fire. One, Melinda Dennis, said Abdulmutallab had been severely burned on one leg. “You could [still] smell the smell of smoke when we landed” she said.

It emerged later that the explosion had been caused by a mixture of liquid and powder, apparently contained in a device Abdulmutallab had hidden on his inside thigh.

It is believed he had mixed an explosive concoction in one of the lavatories of the plane and then attempted to detonate it a short time after returning to his seat.

He had apparently given other passengers no cause for concern and had not spoken to anybody. A man who spoke to a passenger sitting next to Abdulmutallab in 19B was told that the suspect had got up once during the flight to use the lavatory and again about 25 minutes before the incident “to brush his teeth”.

For the last 15 minutes or so of the flight, Abdulmutallab was held handcuffed at the front of the plane.

Passengers who had left their seats in the panic were told to sit back down and fasten their seat belts in preparation for the landing.

At 12.01pm local time, Flight 253 landed safely at Detroit Metropolitan airport.

Within moments of it touching down, uniformed police and airport security staff were on the scene. Minutes later, FBI agents arrived.

Abdulmutallab was removed from the plane still handcuffed.

According to one report, he was handcuffed to a stretcher and later treated under armed guard in hospital for second and third degree burns on his thighs.

Other medics treated two passengers who had received burns in the incident: one of those needed hospital care.

According to security sources in America yesterday, Abdulmutallab had recovered sufficiently to start discussing the incident, and his alleged links to Yemen.

Mr Schuringa, who was praised for his swift action, said: “I don’t feel like a hero. It was something that came completely naturally … I had to do something, or it would be too late.”